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NPPL Chicago Open

I remember last year when NPPL had the Chicago Open at CPX Sports in Joliet, IL and the weather was beyond awesome. Temperatures hovered around high 70’s, no humidity and only a small chance of storms, which nicely passed right over the event. This May when NPPL Chicago Open went back to CPX the weather was not so cooperative. We were in the 90’s with around 85% humidity and I for one do not play nicely with humidity! As well, no matter how many events I attend that have this kind of weather I am so amazed at the amount of players (and these are athletes we’re talking about) who forget to hydrate. It’s so simple, when you’re sweating that much you need to replenish your body, but once again we saw a number of players down due to heat exhaustion. All right, there it is, my you must drink water and hydrate yourself speech and now I’ll step off my proverbial soapbox and move on to the actual event.

The event this year brought even more teams than last year in Chicago, which is awesome, that’s what we want to keep seeing, more and more teams playing the events and supporting the industry. And there was an ample amount of vendors to peruse between games, Empire, Valken, Dye, Raza Paintball, Ninja, Understood and Custom Products to name a few. It was nice to see two of the large PSP vendors making a showing at an NPPL. The VIP sponsor at this event was Tilted Kilt, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the establishment the female servers are all adorned in little kilts and little white tops, knee high socks looking much like the “little school girl” but in a very adult fashion. The Tilted Kilt ladies kept the people who were in VIP fed and hydrated. The Tilted Kilt also has their male servers in kilts and some of the Pro players were guest bartenders at the Bolingbrook Tilted Kilt for the player’s party…nothing like seeing Frank Connell and Damian Ryan in kilts! And speaking of Damian Ryan, he also took place in this year’s NPPL Bikini Contest and I for one am highly disappointed that he didn’t win in his mankini!

Also, with Living Legends being held the same weekend at CPX players were able to jump on the scenario side and give that a good run. I think anytime the two sides of paintball can coexist at one event just helps expose more players to all aspects of the game and industry. CPX was an outstanding host for the event, they went out of their way to be a great host field and make sure everyone had a great event.

As per in Huntington Beach, the new format kept the action going non-stop and so much paint flying. Which is a good time to mention, and not sure why exactly, but I have never been shot so many times being on the side of this particular layout as I was at this event. Not intentionally mind you, grimy, dirty players are also gentlemen and they are kind enough to not shoot in my general direction, that is of course unless I put myself in their line of fire! So, maybe we can take the refs and photographers into consideration when putting up the netting, some sideline would be hugely appreciated. I digress, now back to the games, it seemed for the vast majority of this event Edmonton Impact was the dominant force, not losing a single match in preliminaries. Dynasty struggled quite a bit, playing this event without Oliver Lang and not making the cut to Sunday. Some notable mentions were San Francisco Explicit who not only made it to Sunday but also finished the event in third. I must mention, Explicit has come a long way since turning Pro in 2009. If memory serves this is the first event they made it to Sunday and to place third is a huge leap for them and I would suspect we will continue to see them making big moves. And Portland Uprising, despite incurring numerous penalties during prelims barely missed the cut. Sacramento XSV, who won Huntington Beach, struggled through prelims but squeaked their way into Sunday and went up against Impact, came out the first two points looking much like they did in HB but couldn’t pull it out in the end.

Finals were comprised of San Francisco Explicit going against Tampa Bay Damage and as mentioned earlier, Explicit pulled it out and took third over Damage. Edmonton Impact went head to head against Infamous who started the event out a bit slow but during the final match they brought the heat and pushed it into a 3 on 3 overtime match with Nicky Cuba making a big finish and quickly taking all 3 Impact players out (first player taken out on break).

Also, the NPPL is regularly releasing the Rof-fi data and statistics for players and teams. In addition, to preventing players from shooting over 15 balls per second this new NPPL Rof-fi chip provides incredible information for players and teams to evaluate themselves and compare with others. Some of the statistics that can be recorded from the Rof-fi Chips are Total Shots, Average Shots, Games Played and Stamina % Rate. These stats can be viewed at http://www.nppl.com/stats/.Congratulations to all the placing teams and good luck in DC! Also, the Annual All-Star Game will once again be held at the DC Event so keep an eye on www.nppl.com to make sure you get a chance to vote for your favorite players.

For more information about the NPPL, events and complete standings, visit http://www.nppl.com/